I would like to suggest petitioning the ABA for better treatment of non-ABA, online schools! What I have done is to go to their website and leave thoughtful (non-threatening), and professional comments about why the ABA needs to come of age. Here is some points to consider when leaving your comments:

1. Non-ABA law school graduates should be able to take the Bar Exam, since the Bar Exam is a weeding out process anyway.2. Traditional law school graduates have not proven to improve ethics in the law profession.3. We have graduates of online law schools passing the California Bar, the hardest in our country, passing the first attempt.4. Many of us are already professionals in other fields, and the ABA should not stand in our way to improve our professional development.5. There is very little correlation between the high cost of a legal education and success in the legal profession.6. To minimize the value of an online legal education is to imply that professors and instructors of online legal education, who have passed the Bar Exams in various states, are not qualified to teach even with their ABA accredited education.7. Our choice of legal education method is to be able to exercise the free enterprise of education i.e. the ABA should not hinder our future careers by their monopoly through unfair regulation.8. In our technology age, we have the capability of having a professional education online, at a lower cost. 9. Most lawyers do their more complicated than law school legal education (CLE), through on the job training, online education, and seminars.

You can add any other insightful comments to this list to help us all get better recognition. The ABA website for comments is: http://www.americanbar.org/utility/about_the_aba/contact.html , and on the Subject box choose "General Questions and Comments" in the drop down menu. They will send you an acknowledgment via your email.

The ABA's solution I am afraid would be to lobby the state bar's to close down the non ABA online schools. The ABA is a monopoly like organization akin to the AMA. The ABA still can't get its act together on multi state practice and the internet; no reason to expect they can tackle online law schools.

I don't think the ABA has as much control as you think you should probably be sending your message to the various state bars if all 50 states allow non-aba grads to take the bar exam then the ABA won't have much stay they are just what the state bars recognize as an accrediting agency.

As for the overall message I think there is a lot of good served by the traditional brick & mortal schools. Making friends in law school, having a centralized place for speakers, learning how to use traditional practice guides in real law libraries etc is often far superior to spending exorbiant amounts of money on Westlaw or Lexis. However, I am just some guy on the internet.

I am not sure that most state bars would be much more helpful than the ABA. While it may make for some strange bedfellows for some of us, I would recommend encouraging the elevation of the issue with some of the libertarian oriented public policy groups in various states that tend to recognize much government regulation of trades and professions as nothing more than rent seeking. Obviously, that argument will carry more weight in some states than in others, but it is a way of establishing a beach head from which to build out support.

You all are making good points! I just don't feel like we should stop petitioning them on this subject. The ABA and the states need to know we are still here and not going away. As for me, I plan on being persistent. I liken this monopoly they have akin to injustice, and undue oppression of the many of us who are striving ahead with our careers.

Can you believe it, even England will allow exemption from certain pre-law education requirements if you can prove you have enough professional experience in certain fields. What we gained in the American Revolution from England has been lost to big government and socialist-like licensing laws. Now, England leads the way in Free Enterprise of Online Legal Education by showing flexibility of access to a legal career, which we once had in America.

If we are the underdog, which we are, then let's keep the cause going and be proud of the legacy we leave behind. Even if we don't win, there is great satisfaction in knowing we stood for a worthy cause against injustice from the very people who are to promote justice.